The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho (Malaysia)

The book that added to my belief that fantasy stories with badass nuns will always be amazing.

I realized that it’s rather hard to pick books solely based on basic internet research and the Goodreads description of their plots. I feel terrible admitting this considering that I did not end up finishing the first Malaysian book that I picked. For the sake of this whole Asian situation, I picked the book ‘The Sum of Our Follies’ by Shih-Li Kow- a book known for its representation of Malaysian culture through intertwined short stories. The stories were about a cast of characters from the fictional town of Lubok Sayong whose lives are inherently dependent and influenced by each other and other socio-political situations. (If this description reminds you of R.K Narayan’s ‘Malgudi Days’, you’ve got the right vibe. They were indeed written in a light-hearted way with a characteristic sense of humor that felt like home.)

Despite all this, I didn’t manage to get through to the end and I believe that was because of my own reading slump rather than the book’s writing style. So in an effort to get through all the guilt, I was feeling without putting myself through several more hours of research and anxiety, I decided it was fair for me to read from another Malaysian author that has been on my TBR pile for two years now. Hence, this review.


The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water was described to be an old-school wuxia fantasy with a found family trope, set in the period of Emergency in Malaysia where the Malayan communist party tried to overthrow the colonial British government. It starts with a group of bandits, who aren’t quite bandit-y, running into a nun whose monastery has been destroyed by an actual group of bandits. And everything descends into chaos after that. The nun is anything but the image you would conjure when you hear that title and so are the bandits, not exactly ruthless and murderous, they’re a tight-knit group who soon end up with a soft spot for the nun. Discussing the plot too much would ruin the novella for you since it is rather short and quite a fun romp, in all honesty. In addition to the humor, the world is queer-normative with great representation.

I loved the writing style and the way the dialogues were in English but with a dash of Malayan. It’s hard to explain but imagine speaking English with not quite the right subject-verb agreement because you translated your speech directly from an Indian language inside your head before speaking. If you didn’t get that, maybe you should give this book a shot. Not just for the language but how funny it is despite being set in rather sad times. My only complaint is for how short the book was because I wanted more of this hilarious adventure.

My biggest takeaway was everything I learned about colonialism and Malaysian history just because I was curious about world-building. Plus now I know for sure that I’m excited about reading other books by this author, especially the one with the spirit medium whose ghost grandma wants her to seek revenge on gangsters.

a/n: I know it has been a while but let's admire the beautiful cover of this book while I run away instead of making excuses for my absences.